


But What If I Got Love

by Theoroark



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Families of Choice, Friendship, Gen, Getting Together, Humor, M/M, Team as Family, Trauma, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 08:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13314024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theoroark/pseuds/Theoroark
Summary: Gabe and Jack get together. Ana suffers.Part retrospective, part examination of just how much more interesting Ana is in every way.





	But What If I Got Love

Ana had befriended Jack first. She had been leery, at first– the Egyptian army regarded the enhancement program as a quintessentially American barbarity. In the barracks, they speculated about the ramifications of hyper-powerful soldiers of unknown instability and made tasteless jokes about 'roid rage. And Jack had seemed to possess none of Gabriel's comforting calculating finesse. But their first battle together Ana had been attacked by an ER-15 at close range, and nearly lost her leg. Jack had sat beside her on the drop ship as the medic worked and talked to her the whole time, grounding her. Becoming friends with Jack, and the intimate nature of the Strike Team, meant that soon she was able to see through the layers of cynicism and edge Gabriel wrapped himself in, and saw how almost frighteningly unstoppable his drive to protect was. She took to sitting at the foot of his bed as he wrote mission reports at the head. He would ask her questions– what would she estimate the number of enemy combatants was, had she noticed any missing details from her sniper's perch, did she think he could have saved them. She always answered truthfully and he always seemed grateful.

In the years after the fall of Overwatch, Ana saw many people say that she had been the linchpin holding the leadership together, that she could have prevented Jack and Gabriel's bloody conflict. They were wrong, but it was the way they were wrong that rankled the most. They talked as though she would scold Gabriel into behaving, nag Jack into competence. After the war, she had gotten prized offers from the Egyptian military and private security firms. She had been asked to run for office. And yet these people thought she would turn all of that down to be a mother to two grown men.

She had stayed by Gabriel and Jack's sides for a reason. But if it had been an option during the period right after the two hooked up, she might have been sorely tempted to leave.

It happened close to the end of the team's first year. Jack had ran into a collapsing warehouse, against Gabriel's instructions, to save a civilian. As soon as Jack walked into the rec room, fresh from the med bay, Gabriel had stood up with a tight, closed look on his face and asked to speak to him privately. Jack had followed him out, looking nervous. They were gone for an hour. Jack came back with a giddy smile. Gabriel would not look any of them in the eye.

"I have something to tell you," Jack whispered to her, that night. "But you can't tell anyone else." He had woken her up at midnight and dragged her outside their base. Ana sat there in her pajamas and tried not to roll her eyes.

"What ever could this be about?"

"It turns out Gabe likes me! We kissed!" Jack's giddy smile was back and Ana imagined no amount of sarcasm could will it away.

"That's awesome, Jack," she said honestly.

"And then I sucked his dick!"

Ana groaned and dropped her head to her knees. Jack laughed and slung his arm around her shoulder.

"You can't tell anyone else though, okay? He's still my CO. So it can't be a thing."

"I think people might guess," Ana said delicately. That made Jack frown, but only briefly.

"Nah. I think we can do this. I mean, I didn't know he liked me until now."

Ana dropped her head to her knees again.

Jack being ridiculous about this did not completely surprise her. His favorite movie was _When Harry Met Sally_ , and Gabriel told her that he had talked about eloping with another SEP soldier, before the man had died. But Gabriel was sensible, to the point of brusqueness at times. She expected him to be calm and discrete.

"I'm in love of him," Gabriel told her, the next day. Ana looked over at him, surprised.

"Uh. Look, I'm rooting for you crazy kids, but it's been one day."

"It's been years for me," Gabriel said resolutely. He fiddled with his stylus. "How do you think he feels? About me? He said he had feelings for me too, but that could mean anything..."

Ana lolled her head back against his bedroom wall and groaned.

She would miss the middle school sleepover talk, however, when Jack and Gabriel entered their high school stage.

"I know this is a dive," Ana said in a low voice, staring straight ahead. "But we are still in public."

Gabriel and Jack refused to stop making out long enough to answer her. Ana took a long drink and wondered for the umpteenth time how long the bar stool could support the weight of two super soldiers.

The two of them broke apart with a horribly moist noise and whispered briefly. Ana shut her eyes and drank more.

"We're, uh, going to go to the bathroom for a minute," Gabriel said. "Can you uh. Head people off?"

Ana finished her beer and reached over to take Gabriel's nearly untouched one. He opened his mouth to protest, then clearly thought better of it. He slid off Jack's lap, grabbed his hand, and the two of them raced to the back of the bar. Ana drank.

"It's just all they talk about anymore," she said to Reinhardt during one of their clandestine smoke breaks. Angeleno that he was, Gabriel dreamed of a team that shared his love of kale smoothies and jogging. Since he couldn't get that, he settled for forbidding smoking. Before, she had been able to enlist Jack to give them a warning if Gabriel was headed their way. Now, he primly told her it was bad for her health.

"It was a long time coming," Reinhardt said diplomatically. "It must be very exciting for them."

"I know." Ana sighed. "It's not that I'm not happy for them."

"But you're not excited for them?"

"I don't know," she said. "You were right, it was a long time coming. So it's not exactly surprising. And it's not that I don't think they'd be good together. It's just, if it doesn't work out..."

"I don't think either are the type to let personal baggage stop them from doing their duty," Reinhardt said.

"I know."

"Then what is it?" Ana lowered her cigarette and looked at the ground.

"I don't want us to stop being friends," she said. "And that might happen anyway because they only talk to me about each other now, but it's definitely going to happen if they break up. I don't want to lose them, as friends."

"Oh, Ana." Reinhardt placed a hand on her shoulder. "Jack and Gabriel care about you very much. That hasn't changed! They are just, a bit..."

He trailed off, casting around for the word. Ana raised an eyebrow.

"Dickish?" he tried. Ana snorted and he smiled. "They are going to be selfish and stupid for a bit. If it gets to be too much, call them on it. But I wouldn't be surprised if they get there on their own soon."

"Yeah," Ana said. She raised the cigarette back up to her lips and Reinhardt squeezed her shoulder. "Probably will."

"They will," Reinhardt said confidently. "Now, if we could talk about something other than your relationships..." Ana elbowed him in the stomach and he laughed.

He was right, and it came relatively quickly.

The mission to Nice was a disaster. They had gotten pinned down by a platoon of OR-14s. Gabriel had ordered them to retreat, leaving the hotel of human civilians in Omnic hands. Gabriel had called for back up. The hotel was rubble by the time the UN bothered to deny his request.

After, Ana snuck out in the middle of the night to smoke. Jack followed her. He sat on the ground looking up at her as she leaned against the wall. Neither of them said anything for a long time.

"Could you...?" he finally asked.

"Yeah," she said. He nodded. When they had failed a rescue mission of a kidnapped general and their family, Ana had told him about how her eye and her scope meant she knew the faces of each combatant, each civilian, each casualty on the field. Five of the faces she had seen that flubbed rescue had been gone, because of them.

"There were 50, maybe 70 people in the hotel," she told Jack. She took a drag off her cigarette. "I saw kids."

"I'm sorry, Ana," he said. He leaned against her leg and she closed her eyes. "It's not fair."

"Well. I get to be away from all the real dangerous shit, don't I?" she said. Her voice was artificially light. Jack just shook his head.

"I know it's not what you want," he said. "I know you'd trade with any or us in a heartbeat. You don't, because you're good at what you do, and you're a good person. But it's not fair."

She nodded. There was a lump in her throat. "Yeah," she said.

She and Jack went back in eventually. He stayed in their dorm, instead of sneaking off the Gabriel's room. She listened to his loud snoring as she lay awake, the whole night.

At 4 am, she gave up and went to their kitchen. Gabriel was already there, a v of sweat on his tank top and breathing heavily from his morning run.

"Gross," Ana said, and he grinned.

"You're always welcome to join me." She ignored him and filled up the electric kettle. He leaned against a chair and watched her plug at the settings. "Why are you up so early?"

"I can be productive, too."

"I have no doubt about that," Gabriel said. "But I seem to remember you telling me that you're most productive when it's not 'dumbshit early.'"

"Trying something new."

"Yeah, alright." He took a sip from his smoothie. "I know yesterday was bad, Ana."

He was watching her carefully. She leaned back against the counter and let out a long breath through her teeth.

"It was rough for everyone," she said.

"I know. But I'm talking to you."

"Well, what do you want me to say, Gabriel?" It came out too sharp, but he seemed unfazed.

"I led you all into that mission," he said. Ana let go of the counter and stared at him. "I did the prep, I was responsible for recon, I'm the one who maintains comms to HQ. If you're mad about the mission, you should be mad at me. And I wanted to give you a chance to be mad at me."

The kettle was whistling, but Ana pushed away from the counter and took a step towards him. "Gabriel–"

"I'm not fishing for pity and I'm not apologizing," he said. His voice was steady and he didn't break eye contact. "We couldn't have won that one, not by ourselves. It was brutal, but there would have been much more bloodshed if we had died there, if we weren't around to save anyone else. But it was brutal. They died. And I know you. You being mad makes perfect sense. I'm not going to begrudge you any of your anger."

"I'm not mad at you, Gabriel," Ana said. She was being truthful, as always, and he seemed satisfied.

"Water's ready," he said over the shrilling. She rolled her eyes and turned back to it, groping in one of the cupboards for a mug. "'Course, you could probably sleep for a couple more hours, if you wanted to."

Ana turned off the kettle and stared at the counter and sighed. "Yeah. I think I'll try." He slapped her back as she walked past him.

"You can try to get on my level later," he said. She flipped him the bird and he laughed.

That was the last time she doubted them. She left them, in the end, but she convinced herself that it was because she loved them. She did not expect the public or the pundits to understand. But she had stayed at Overwatch because she had to fight, and she knew of no better way than beside her two best friends. And by the time she cared to learn a new way, she was too old to change.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Consider this the other side of all those fics where Ana only shows up to give relationship advice to Jack and Gabe. 
> 
> I'm @tacticalgrandma if you want to talk to me there. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and any comments/kudos would mean the world to me!


End file.
